Woof woof

Over breakfast this morning, the spouse was having a rant about how we’ve still got no front stairs to the building two months aftertheir dramatic collapse, when he suddenly broke off mid-sentence.

“There’s that bloody dog next door barking again.” he said.

“I didn’t know they had a dog…”

I stood motionless and did my special listening intently display of swivelling my eyes sharply from side to side.There’s no point swivelling the ears these days, but swivelling the eyes instead makes it look like one is at least trying. “Has it stopped?” I asked , knowing I had a 50% chance of being right.

“Have you got the machine in?” barked the spouse, frustrated that I was unable to fully share in his aural irritation. In a final attempt to show willing, I cranked the Siemens on to the mind-blowing ‘Music & tv’ setting to get the full bionic ear effect, and lo and behold, there was that strange chirping noise I’d been hearing recently. It didn’t sound much like a dog. I assumed it had been coming from the hearing aid.